


how to let your planets align

by tothemoon



Series: ad astra [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 1980s, Alternate Universe, End of the World, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, I know this is tagged "end of the world", M/M, Magical Realism, Miscommunication, One Shot, but tbh, its a very soft apocalypse i swear to u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothemoon/pseuds/tothemoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the last day on earth, December 2nd, 1985, when you realize you're in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	how to let your planets align

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended listening: "Lifted Up (1985) - Glitter and Strobe Lights Remix" by Passion Pit

 

 

_“Iwa-chan. Iwa-chan, please talk to me.”_

 

_“We just—I can’t believe—”_

_“It was just one time. One time right?”_

_“Yeah. That’s it. Just that once.”_

_“And we won’t tell anyone else about it?”_

_“No. No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Just never again. We can never do that again.”_

_“Okay. Not even if you were the last person on earth—”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“—and even if the world were to end tomorrow.”_

  


* * *

 

 

 

It is December 19th, 1984, when the second snow falls over Sendai for the winter. Amidst the flurry, one Oikawa Tooru shuts the window closed, stays at seated at his desk, and waits for Iwaizumi Hajime to finish his cleaning duties for the day. 

“Hey, Iwa-chan, did you know?” Oikawa asks, while Iwaizumi’s trying his best to ignore him. 

“Know what?” he answers him anyway, because he almost always does.

“That Mattsun made a strange bet with me today.”

“Is that so?” 

“Yeah,” Oikawa tells him, tugging on his sweater sleeves and blowing on his hands. “You know how he is, always asking weird questions, big existential things you don’t always have the answer to on the spot. So we bickered about it for a good while, all during the lunch period, really, before settling on a five-hundred yen bet.”

“And what was the bet about?” Iwaizumi asks, still sweeping from the sound of the brush bristles, and probably still bored as all hell.

Oikawa laughs it off, drawing on the frosted glass. “On how the world is going to end,” he says in all reverence, keeping his sights on the snow outside. He turns to face Iwaizumi, all blinking and pleasantly smug, and waits for Iwaizumi to scold him, but he never does. He just stops sweeping, hands still gripped on his broom handle, and looks surer than anything else. But Oikawa realizes that he should know better by now, that it is not easy to scare the likes of Iwaizumi Hajime, and takes the loss this time around.

“Well, no one’s going to win that one,” Iwaizumi proclaims next.

“Yeah? And why is that so?” Oikawa asks, humoring him as just as Iwaizumi’s done the same.

“Because the world isn’t going to end,” Iwaizumi tells him. 

“Really?” Oikawa tilts his head to the side in searching curiosity. “How can you be so sure about something like that?” he challenges him, and Iwaizumi's shoulders lower out of tenseness. Ease comes over his face by the way of a spread smile, just as natural as the falling snow and the orbit of the neighboring planets, and Oikawa foolishly wonders what it'd be like to stay in Iwaizumi's.

"I know for sure the world isn't going to end," he says.

Oikawa blinks away the thought once more.

“Because I would never, ever let it.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_“So who would you spend the day with, Iwa-chan?”_

_“What?”_

_“If the world were to end, and you only had one more day.”_

_“See, now that’s a weird question to answer. You could give Matsukawa Issei a run for his money.”_

_“But, Iwa-chan.”_

_“What?”_

_“Could you answer me, anyway?”_

 

* * *

 

 

On the day the end of the world is announced, it is the early morning of December 2nd, 1985, and Oikawa Tooru tells himself he’ll have no regrets.

"I told you so. Didn't I tell you so?"

It is also on this particular day that Oikawa gives Matsukawa Issei five hundred yen, a bar of dark chocolate, and a pat on the back for winning a particular bet about the world ending in _ice_ or _fire_ or _giant predator lizards_. (Oikawa had been wrong on all accounts.) He counts the loss fleetingly, holds his head up high, and waits for the heavens to collide. Oikawa clicks his tongue in a _tch_ when it doesn't, lays out the blanket on the ground, and lights a candle for the fading darkness. "No need to gloat, Matssun," he just refutes with a sigh, peering up at the dark violet sky before sticking to the ground.

"You know, no one believed me when I said it'd end by deadly collision. It happened to the dinosaurs, so don't you think it'd be due for us, too?

"Not necessarily." 

"But you must've seen all the movies. Asteroids, _aliens_ , it's all the same."

Oikawa shifts uncomfortably under his jacket. "I have," he lilts out, letting his shoulders shrug out against the wind. "But that's the thing. They're just movies," he tells Matsukawa just this once, disregarding all the other times he's insisted on the presence of extraterrestrials and other astral things.

" _Life imitates art_ , my friend," Matsukawa looks too proud in saying, pointing up at the sky. The sun hasn't come up yet, but the sky's already seen early traces of a light it shouldn't have until the morning; when Oikawa makes out the glow of a full and yellowed moon, the blazing blue menace next to it, he shivers against the possibilities, of dying by _death by incoming comet_ , and tells himself it is nothing. It must be, if it's still two-hundred million miles away and burning at the speed of light. It must be, if it's only going to be the size of a volleyball by the time it gets here (or at least, he says he'll will it to be).

Oikawa musters all his imagination about all of this, disregards the emergency news reports and chanting testimonials of doom—" _because_ _we're all fucked_ ," Hanamaki had said to him upon coming to school at two o'clock in the goddamned morning—and dreams up a best case scenario. Because _sure,_ a comet might be hurdling towards the earth, with seas to rise and lands to shift, but like hell would he let that change anything. When Oikawa thinks of volleyball and entrance exams, of people he still has to beat, it is in the context of _tomorrow_. _Because there will always be tomorrow,_ he thinks, he _urges_ , with all the time to spare.

Lifted out of his thoughts, Oikawa hears the door creak open behind them. Hanamaki Takahiro comes sauntering through with a few cans of coffee, just as instructed the day before, and waves to the other third years with a heavy yawn. Oikawa peers past him, looking to find a certain someone lagging behind with a few loaves of early breakfast bread or a volleyball to toss on the roof, but finds no such luck in such empty spaces. In return, Oikawa just leans back against the fence, peers back at the comet—that second moon in the sky, still far but inching ever closer—and shakes the thought off of Iwaizumi Hajime sleeping through their last day on earth. He wouldn't, he _couldn't,_ and if he did, Oikawa would never forgive him for it.

"Don't worry about it," Hanamaki says, reaching over to loosen the pout on Oikawa's face. "He'll be up on the roof soon. A girl just stopped to give him something at the entrance and—"

" _A girl_? At this hour?" Matsukawa interrupts. Oikawa checks his own watch, making out a tidy _two-fifteen_ on the clock face.

Hanamaki shrugs. "I wouldn't find it so odd if I were you," he tells them both, always seemingly bored by drawling countryside tones, even in the face of impending apocalypse. "Half the neighborhood's awake, raising hell and whatnot. Fireworks in the street, middle schoolers burning their workbooks by their sparklers. My neighbors are holding _all-you-can-eat_ _oden_ parties and playing their records too loud. It's _calamity_."

" _Hardly_ calamity," Matsukawa chimes in, pretending to down his can of coffee like a shot of hard liquor. "You're such an old man."

"I am _not_ an old man."

Matsukawa scoffs. "Go sing some _Otomi-san_ with the other elders, _you old man._ "

"But you get my point. People are doing what they want, so someone confessing to a person they like isn't exactly surprising."

"Wait," Oikawa perks up, spilling some of his drink down his chin. "You said _what_? _Iwa-chan_ is _...?_ "

"Other way around, so don't worry," Hanamaki says with a snicker.

"I'm _not_ worried."

"All right, then," Hanamaki continues, unconvinced. "Anyway, turns out Mayumi-chan from class four has had a crush on Iwaizumi since the _beginning of time_ , and she just _had_ to make her feelings known." Hanamaki raises himself out of his usual sunken gaze, peering straight at Oikawa with the strangest conviction. "I mean, it's always been obvious, though."

"Ah, yes," Matsukawa teases, too. " _Too obvious_."

Oikawa feels a funny little scowl form on his face. It is the type that tries to force itself into a smile, but always ends up lopsided halfway there. "It's funny, how the world works, I guess," he tries to match in levity, but his delivery is too listless to compare. " _Calamity_ makes you do weird things,” he adds, just for good measure, just to get the huffs out of his system.

"Like _confess,_ " Hanamaki emphasizes again, smirks abound, and Matsukawa just merely joins him with a taunt of batted eyelashes. 

Past the resulting silence, the tongue-tyings, Oikawa just thinks of making his usual jokes—his _who-would-even-date-Iwa-chan's_ and _his-forehead-is-too-high's—_ but finds it hard to form the words.

Peering over the fence and to the grounds below instead, he makes out two shadows in the street lamp light, feels his jaw clench into something more severe than before, and forgets to breathe. 

There stands a boy and a girl. The boy is receiving a confession, head hunched and modest over a written letter. Their silhouettes exchange shy and careful motions, mouths opening and closing in their declarations, and Oikawa feels nothing but his stomach tie up in the worst kind of knots. He imagines the exchanged words and makes himself even queasier with the hypotheticals.

 

_I like you, Iwaizumi-kun._

_Oh, I like you too, Mayumi-chan._

_You're the only person in the world I want to be with, don't you know?_

_Hey, don’t worry, I feel the exact same!_

 

"Oikawa."

"He's in his own head again, Makki, you know there's no getting him out."

But when he watches the girl to cry into her hands, choking down the scene in utmost fascination, _expectation,_ Oikawa wonders why sympathyis not something he can muster. He inhales, careful not to let himself sigh, and watches the two shadows turn into one.

"Hey, _Oikawa_."

At once, Oikawa tears himself away, pretends to gaze up at the two moons once more, and covers himself up with a smile. _Make it pleasant._ When he glances back, sees that Iwaizumi has not left his spot by the tree, and gets up from the picnic blanket, right back on his feet.

"You're going to go get him, aren't you?" Hanamaki asks.

"We'll be back."

" _Buuut_ getting him back probably means running off altogether, because it’s you two we’re talking about." 

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” Oikawa huffs out.

“It just means you two are are _shit_ at keeping still,” Matsukawa chimes in.

“Yeah, and what do you think we’d do?” Oikawa asks. “Wreak havoc on the town? Go looting?”

“ _Calamity_ , on your own terms,” Hanamaki muses.

“Well, _we’ll be back,_ ” Oikawa insists again, even though it feels like a lie coming off his tongue.

“ _Sure_ you are.”

“Wherever you’re going next, just be sure to meet us back here at some point,” Matsukawa tells Oikawa, voice as calm as the incoming breeze. “as much as I hate to admit this, it’d be kind of a shame if we didn’t get to see you by the end of it all.”

Oikawa watches one hand shift over the other on the picnic blanket below them, how fingers interlace and stay without separating. At once, he understands the two of them, stiffens his lip and pretends that he is completely happy for them. At once, a warmth, the worst kind, surges up his back and says, _like hell you are._ _Like hell you are,_ because Oikawa knows a thing or two about unfinished business and incorrigible pettiness, and that with envy comes something bitter. _So don’t stay bitter,_ they say, with knowing looks and approving nods. _Go do what you need to do,_ and _see who you need to see._

"Just be careful out there," Matsukawa warns him. "Because Miyagi might show you something strange tonight."

With this, Oikawa crouches back down, musters the most courage he can for _god knows what_ , just for the smallest moment before rising, and seeks to spend the last day on earth with Iwaizumi Hajime.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_“I would spend it with someone special.”_

_“What?”_

_“That’s my answer to your question. It would have to be with someone special.”_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

On the day of the end of the world, December 2nd, 1985, Oikawa Tooru first sees Iwaizumi Hajime at the Aoba Johsai athletic track, feet straddling the line between one lane and the next. He’s still got the girl’s letter in one of his hands, wincing in a shiver that Oikawa knows he’ll never own up to at this time of year. Matching his feet on the white paint, he leans over to meet Iwaizumi in the eye, ever pleasant for the end of the world, and at this, Iwaizumi just scoffs and cranes his neck up to the sky.

“She wrote me a list,” Iwaizumi mutters.

“Good morning to you too, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa tells him right back, all indignant, and Iwaizumi does not stir from the tease.

“I know you were watching from the roof,” he says instead. “Might as well get to point."

“Yeah, but how did you know I’d even ask about that? It's rude to assume.”

“Because it’s you,” Iwaizumi goes on. “Because you’re not going to ask, even though I know you want to. Because you’ve spent the last fifteen minutes following me around campus like you wanted me to see. Because you’re annoying as hell, and I want to save myself the grief. So I’ll tell you once again. _It was a list._ ”

“You always know how to hurt me, Iwa-chan.”

“ _Good morning_ to you too, Oikawa.”

A visible puff goes up in the air when Iwaizumi exhales deep, and for a moment the air is so thick that Oikawa’s sure it’ll join the clouds above. They stay like this for awhile, content to guard themselves under winter coats and loosely-bound scarves. Oikawa even notices the way Iwaizumi’s forgone his gloves, how red they’ve gone by the knuckles, and wonders why he’s so content to leave them out of his pockets. In the quiet, Iwaizumi presses the letter into Oikawa’s hands, shakes off his shivers just this once, and unclasps their hands in the wake of it. Pretending not to notice the separation, not even in the slightest, Oikawa peers down at the piece of paper, reading to a cheery shade of periwinkle blue.

“ _Things to do with Iwaizumi Hajime_ ,” Oikawa says the top of the page out loud, and Iwaizumi instantly chides him for unnecessary narration. When he says he needs to go for a quick run (because _“god I need to clear my head”_ ) Oikawa sees him off with a quick wave and slinks off to the bleachers. In between lines, he steals the tiniest glimpses of a boy on a run to nowhere.

 _One—see the sun rise (if the sun wants to come up)._ He watches Iwaizumi throw off his own jacket in the midst of his dash, because he’s always been a boy of summer, too heated to keep down by layers. Sleeves roll up and dust kicks up. “ _Fuck,”_ Iwaizumi shouts up at the sky with another puff of clouded air, because the end of the world is worth a million profanities, said another million times over. But he never stumbles—Oikawa watches how he might trip but never fall, how he might huff and puff but never complain about the burning in his throat. He goes on and on and on, hands clenched at his sides but never, ever cold.

 _Two—don't be afraid to cry._ Iwaizumi sprints so fast and so hard he storms up a sweat in no time. He bends over his knees and catches his breath on the farthest end of the loop, eyes hidden by the bend of his arm. It doesn’t take long for him to reveal himself, and to let the sweat drip on the frozen track. 

When Oikawa gets a closer look, he realizes why he was hiding in the first place. When Iwaizumi knows that Oikawa’s been watching him cry, _maybe cry,_ he stiffens up and nods to say, _it’s fine, I’ll be okay, stop watching me._ _Please look away_. Another “fuck!” comes out of his lips when he starts to run again, and Oikawa feels it sting across his core.

He decides to put away the list without finishing the rest of the it. He meets Iwaizumi back on the track, lining up their feet on the white lines once more, and inches closer when the wind kicks up too fierce. Iwaizumi does too, even if it’s just by something less than a millimeter, and they let their hands brush once more without holding. Almost instantly, Oikawa is the one to flinch away this time, as much as he doesn’t want to. Because even with the promises to never _speak about it again—_ the kissing, unfastened buttons, the abandoned clothes, small touches across skin, the sweeping motions of something more—Oikawa has to constantly remind himself that they were only a one time deal. He hides a nervous smile about it, squashes all thoughts about _them_ for the millionth, maybe billionth time since the past year, and chooses to stay next to him, anyway.

“Iwa-chan.”

"She had me in mind," Iwaizumi blurts out, "for her last day ever—when I've never even given her a second thought."

"It happens!" Oikawa tries to lighten the mood with a pat on Iwaizumi's back. "You get used to it once you start getting a lot of confessions _like me_ and—" 

"Be serious, Oikawa. I'm in no mood to play with you."

With a sigh, Oikawa lowers himself away from the pleasantries, suddenly much too shy to look Iwaizumi in the eye. "Fine," he concedes, scraping his foot against the white line once more. "What did you say to her, then?"

Iwaizumi doesn't answer.

"Iwa-chan?"

"I just said I couldn't."

"Why?" 

"I just couldn't."

"Okay, I _get_ that, but _why—_ "

"Just drop it already!" Iwaizumi barks, still keeping next to him. Silence washes over them again, heavy and scalding, and Oikawa just hands the letter back to Iwaizumi without breaking it. In turn, Iwaizumi crumples it up a fit of something frustrated (but not quite angry, judging from the lack of a growl and the way he sighs instead of screams), and takes off to complete another lap around the track. When feet kick up the dirt once more, and Oikawa watches him sprint down the line, he hunches over like the comet's impact is already on them. 

"Iwa-chan!"

"I just need to clear my head!" he yells back once more, speeding up.

"But Iwa-chan!" 

" _What_?"

"We should complete that list together, Iwa-chan!" Oikawa yells out at the top of his lungs, right on impulse, _always on impulse,_ and Iwaizumi stops dead on the trail. Soles dig into the track rubber and turn back to face him.

"Oikawa."

The other third year gulps down, hard, and lets his face scrunch up before opening up again. "Let's just do it," Oikawa insists. "Let's just go for it. Why do we have to think so hard about this?" 

"Because the _last_ time _we didn't think_ you ended up in my bed—"

"But this is different!" Oikawa shouts back. "This is just— _it's different._ It's the end of the line, Iwa-chan, and I'm not going to spend it mourning at a temple or sitting around at home eating _nabe_ and telling stories. So please," he continues on, voice whittling into something about to crack. " _Please_." _Let's go out on our own terms._  

"Listen," Iwaizumi breathes out.

"What?" 

"You didn't get a chance to read the rest of that list, did you?" Iwaizumi asks quietly, bodies drifting closer on the track once more. "It'll have us going all over the place."

Oikawa shakes his head, resisting the heat rising up in his face. "I'm not afraid of it—"

"I'm _not_ afraid—"

"—and you shouldn't be, either," Oikawa continues, lying with his usual brand of cool, and then shaking by his bones because of it. "Because you're the only one who can dare to keep up with me."

Iwaizumi peers back down at the crumpled ball in Oikawa's hands, gets close enough to close a considerable distance, and takes the letter back from him. But before they separate again, they let themselves remain, hands clasped, eyes locked, and more promises made without pretense. Iwaizumi must be able to through all of Oikawa's feints much in the same Oikawa knows he's shaking by the cold, and for once he wonders if he could stay in this sort of standstill a little longer.

"So will you do this with me, Iwa-chan? One last adventure?" 

But they don't stay stagnant forever, because they have a list to run through and a day to make theirs. Iwaizumi just takes note of the time, two thirty-seven in the morning, and lets go before Oikawa can register anymore of his warmth.

"Yeah. Let's do it."

And like that they march on, side by side along the track and off it, with hands lingering close but not daring to hold.

 

* * *

 

 

_"And what would you do, Iwa-chan?"_

_"Huh?"_

_"If you only had those last couple of hours, what would you do?"_  

_"That's not something I can answer so easily."_

_"Try."_

 

* * *

 

 

 

Before the sun even gets a chance to rise, Oikawa and Iwaizumi uncover a new world in the town they've known all their lives. It starts with the mundane things—like the empty ghost houses atop hills, the wishing fountains, and vacant alleys where people watch from their windows—but they both come to formulate new theories (perhaps, _truths_ ) about the end of the world: _that if it shall cease to exist, it will exhaust every oddity and make every phenomenon known._ This is what Oikawa comes to believe when the fireflies rise up out of the snow to greet them, and the canaries sing them their best spring songs in winter. Cats trapeze the top of walls and laundry lines like they want to talk instead of hiss, and the earth rumbles beneath them in something hungry.

"Okay. Next on the list."

Iwaizumi has appointed himself the list keeper, and Oikawa doesn't bother to pry at it in the darkness. They jump around the likes of Miyagi to do as instructed, screaming off the sides of buildings and blowing soap bubbles with the children that don't know any better. Homework is burnt and matching t-shirts are bought (only to be subsequently set on fire as well). When Oikawa feels himself tire, he reminds himself that he cannot possibly lose to the likes of Iwaizumi Hajime, and when he falls behind on the road, he lengthens his strides to catch up to his side.

" _Number thirteen."_

"Wait, we've gone _that_ far down the list?" Oikawa asks.

"I'm going out of order," Iwaizumi informs him.

"So we've done things at the bottom, then?" Oikawa guesses, trying to get a sneak peak at the crumpled paper, but Iwaizumi yanks it away before he has the chance to see.

"Not yet. We might not even have a chance to get to that," Iwaizumi says. "It's not like we have a ton of time."

"Morbid, Iwa-chan," Oikawa chimes, making their way down another empty street. Vacant by daydreams, he lets his sights loom up to the hills ahead, where the dazzle of blinking light snaps him out of it. He watches the way it flirts with the both of them, all slow and glowing but building into something bright before fading again. _Too much of a spectacle to be fireflies._ In musing, Oikawa wonders if the ghosts are having their own galas in the mountains, and briefly shuts the thought out about such folklore. 

"We're here," Iwaizumi announces, when Oikawa didn't even know they were headed anywhere in particular. He makes out the storefront, a flower shop long abandoned, all dilapidated even by the apocalypse's standards, and doesn't bother pretending he isn't unimpressed. Oikawa wipes the dust off the display glass, blows it off his sleeve in Iwaizumi's direction, and waits for the list's next demand.

" _Number thirteen_ ," Iwaizumi continues, undeterred. "Get him to buy me flowers."

"Demanding," Oikawa retorts.

"Can't blame her. Everyone likes flowers," says Iwaizumi.

" _You'd_ like to get flowers?"

Iwaizumi shrugs, fiddling with the door knob. "I guess. Wouldn't you?" 

" _I guess,_ " Oikawa mocks. "Anyway, what are we supposed to do, then? Buy her a bouquet of flowers? Oh, I know! We could show up right at her house and say, _I still can't accept your feelings, but everyone deserves some flowers once in awhile! Courtesy of Iwaizumi Hajime and Oikawa Tooru!_ "

"Don't be an asshole about this," Iwaizumi gruffs out, using the push of his shoulder to knock in the door's rotten wood. He nearly trips over a few clay pots on his way inside, accidentally swatting a few fireflies along the way.

"Then what?" Oikawa asks, endlessly annoyed, eyes on the ground and kicking up dead leaves. "Why are we here at this _dump—"_

"It’s not a dump,” Iwaizumi tells him, almost like he’s realizing it himself, quieter without the usual roar. “Look,” he says with a yank of the other boy’s wrist, and at once Oikawa might understand.

In the place of a flower shop and its sterile fridges, its orderly rows, its confining pots, a real and wild Eden has emerged; in the unnatural light of an early morning at the end of the world, Oikawa makes out the overgrown ivy, the tall grasses eating worktables, the pink wisteria hanging off chandeliers and climbing along the ceiling—and before he knows it, he’s wandering deeper inside with Iwaizumi, daring to intrude with him.

“Mayumi-chan would probably like a bouquet from here. It's lovely,” Oikawa muses, reaching up to graze some of the lower hanging wisteria. Hajime just clicks his tongue, lets go of Oikawa’s hand once more, and kneels down in the tall grasses to pick at weeds or thistles or _whatever it is he might be looking for_. With a hidden scowl, and to keep himself occupied, Oikawa just slinks over to the wall of ivy, brushes his hands against the leaves, and teases the fireflies resting on the edges. When they rise up, he makes a half-hearted attempt at catching a few before letting his efforts up.

“It’s not too late to bring her flowers, you know."

“For the last time, Oikawa, I’m not going to give her flowers.”

“How mean.”

“I’m not the one being cruel here. No one has ever benefitted from _mixed signals_."

"You don't like her?" 

"No."

"Not even in the slightest bit?"

"I am done discussing this with you," Iwaizumi concludes, rising back up from the tall grass. He's found himself a fistful of flowers, delicate and pearly, and for a moment Oikawa wonders if he's going to give him the whole thing; but he doesn't—no, he just sticks most of them in his pocket, claiming they're for his motherlater, only leaving one in the grip between two fingers. Iwaizumi twirls it, looks at it like the leaves are made of something poison, and approaches Oikawa by the ivy wall.

"What are you doing, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa can't help but laugh a little, letting himself back up against the leaves. To his question, Iwaizumi just presses the stem behind the crease of Oikawa's ear, fingers smoothing it in place like he's done this before. In a shiver, shoulders raised in the best sort of tension, Oikawa just presses his gaze away to the side, careful not to show the cards he's not even sure he's got.

"The list said I had to give flowers to someone, and you're the only person here," Iwaizumi tells him, all a-matter-of-fact. Oikawa pouts at the answer, but it doesn't stop them from keeping nose-to-nose, neither one of them daring to budge first.

"Iwa-chan."

And when they do inch closer and closer, mouths to meet like that first accidental kiss a whole year ago, Oikawa breathes into it, completely calm, because _it's Iwa-chan, and I wouldn't mind kissing Iwa-chan today, oh what a joke that'd be—_

—before letting a wandering mouse and the subsequent _clang_ of garden tools stop them from getting to it. At the alarm of it all, Oikawa lets himself gasp out a sigh, while Iwaizumi just lowers himself from any mustered courage. "Sorry," he even says, even though he doesn't have to. When they finally part, it is a mutual repelling of magnetic forces, and a constant reminder not to crash into one another again.

"Let's just—let's just keep going." Iwaizumi stutters out for once, clearing his throat at the end of the command. He wanders further into the store, nearly bumping into a few hanging pots on the way towards the rear of the room. Oikawa simply follows, careful not to acknowledge the static crawling up his back or the sweat sticking to his palms.

"Iwa-chan," Oikawa calls after him, even though he feels like he's done too much of that tonight. He beckons towards the window, making out the pale grey of a light about to be morning. "The sun's almost about to come up, and we're supposed to watch it like the list says," he reminds Iwaizumi.

"Okay, then we'll go outside." Iwaizumi makes it to a sliding door at the back of the room, clearing the cobwebs and the damp moss guarding the way out.

"But I don't want to watch the sunrise just anywhere," Oikawa insists. "We should go up a mountain and see it. Did you see how the hills were blinking before? It's a sign!"

"We're not going to make it by now," Iwaizumi insists. "Not by walking, at least."

"We could run," Oikawa suggests.

"Not even by running," Iwaizumi refutes, when he digs into his pockets and produces a chained set of keys. Oikawa's eyes go wide, mouth running agape without meaning to, letting his head shake its _no's_ when Iwaizumi slides the door open to a back alley and a florist's abandoned _Nissan Datsun NL320_ (or at least that's what Iwaizumi called it upon inspection, adding that it was a _beeeeeautiful, limited edition_ 1963 model, maybe 1964). Peevishly, Oikawa tears the ivy and brambles off its mint green exterior, concedes that maybe it's in better condition than one could have ever hoped for, and that it _would_ make for a nice ride up the hills and— _no. Absolutely not._ Oikawa takes in a deep breath to tell him just that, _no way in hell,_ but watches Iwaizumi pry open the door anyway, driver's seat bound.

"We're not stealing someone's car," Oikawa insists.

"Well, when the police catch us, you can just tell them, _oh but Iwa-chan's the one that stole it! He just kidnapped me and forced me to sit in the passenger's side!_ " Iwaizumi's obviously got a fire going in him now, because Oikawa's sure he's never heard an impression of himself this spot on before. Still, Oikawa does not relent, feet stuck firmly on the ground with his arms crossed and tight.

When he peeks up at the sky, he guesses they might have fifteen, maybe twenty minutes before sunrise.

"You don't even know how to _drive_." 

"Listen, I know you hate the word," Iwaizumi starts, "but I think I'd be a natural at it." When he puts the key into the ignition, the _Datsun_ roars to life like that might be true, and Oikawa only feels his face heat up at the thought of _Iwaizumi Hajime driving him somewhere_. With all the reluctance the world has left to offer, Oikawa just clicks his tongue and grumbles all the way into the passenger's seat, dares to close the door behind him, and pretends he isn't enjoying every second of _the end of the world_.

"For the record," Oikawa adds, just to be difficult, "I don't think you'll be a natural. Your uncle's tractor in Osaka doesn't count."

Iwaizumi laughs without a word, hands on the stick shift and feet on the gas pedal.

 

 

 

* * *

 

  

_"I think I'd like to drive a really cool car."_

_"What?"_

_"You heard me."_

_"A really cool car? Did I hear that right?"_

_"Hey, you asked—I swear, if you keep laughing like that, I'll knead you in the ribs!"_

_"I'm sorry, Iwa-chan! I'm sorry. That's just the purest answer I've ever heard out of anyone."_

 

* * *

 

 

 

And it is on December 2nd, 1985, that Oikawa Tooru learns that, _fine,_ Iwaizumi _is_ a natural at driving.

"Almost there," he says in reverence when they reach the foot of one of the taller mountains in the prefecture, rolling along with the night about to fade. "How much time do you think we have?" he asks, eyes still straight on the road and not tempted to survey the sky. 

Oikawa winds the crank to pull down the window, air sweeter with every inch up the hill, and hums out nothing in particular. "Well," he notes, peering up at the horizon, "maybe five minutes, if you'd stop driving so slowly."

"I could just pull over and miss that goddamned sunrise of yours, you know."

"I'm kidding," Oikawa muses, peering back at Iwaizumi from the sill. Iwaizumi takes the time to do the same, if only for one dragging moment, before kicking the car up another gear and gassing it up by the pedal. He smiles at the speed, and Oikawa just rolls his eyes. 

But this is one of those things about Iwaizumi Hajime. When he drives, this reminds him of the person he is—because even if Iwaizumi might be imprecise sometimes, with turns too sharp, or roads taken not the smoothest, Oikawa never worries about never making it with him. Rest assured, Iwaizumi will always get them where they need to go, by a car stolen, by a spike slammed, by a body touched, by a boy kissed. Oikawa forces his head out the window again when he thinks of the last two parts, careful to remember that some places shouldn't be visited again. _It won't be like this today._ When he fails to force it out of his head anyway, he smothers himself by the bend of his arm and curses for only the engine below to hear.

For what feels like forever, Oikawa lets himself close his eyes and rest. _Sleep_ was never on the agenda for a day like this (and Oikawa does have to admit he's been antsier than usual), but he knows how heavy a body can get from aching. So he tries to drift, over-thinks until it seeps into vague dreaming, and remembers the day he first kissed Iwaizumi Hajime.

It had been the winter of December 7th, 1984, and a mundane one, at that. Aoba Johsai was no one to pause practice just for the likes of chilly weather, and Oikawa usually lived up to their mantras most of all. He had definitely overworked himself that week practicing jump serves, and it didn't help that he was battling a vehement strain of _cold_ to go along with it—it was the kind that never hoped to be contagious, deeper dug than the fevers and reddened cheeks, covered up by passing girlfriends and half-hearted flings and accepted love letters. And even though Oikawa had done everything in his power to distract himself from such maladies, his diversions were the very thing that led Iwaizumi right back to him in the first place.

It was snowing the night of December 7th, 1984, when Oikawa landed badly on his knee after completing an awkwardly placed jump serve on slippery ground. He had tried hiding it on the way home, mostly because he knew Iwaizumi would worry if he found out about it, but it didn't take long for him to see a limping Oikawa out his bedroom window, anyway. It also didn't take long for him to scream for Oikawa to come inside either, and he remembers Iwaizumi leaning so far out the window he could've fallen out altogether.

"I'll just go home, Iwa-chan," Oikawa had told him that night, snow so thick it has been hard to see him. Both of their parents were stuck in different cities until morning, and Oikawa recalls not wanting to be alone in the slightest bit that evening, but that was something he wouldn't dare admit—not to _him_ , and not to anybody.

In a haze, Oikawa remembers Iwaizumi storming out to fetch him anyway, grip of a hand yanking another. He remembers dinner in front of the TV, footsie accidentally played under a _kotatsu_ (and how his best friend had nagged about the repeated kickings). He remembers the terrible water pressure of the _Iwaizumi_ family shower, and throwing on an old shirt of his to sleep in after. He remembers watching the snow on his knees at the foot of Iwaizumi's bed, and Iwaizumi rolling out a futon on the floor for the night. He remembers being a tease about it, insisting that he'd just go home after that, and the way Iwaizumi had held onto his hand and said _he'd slip and die if he went out there_. He remembers the way Iwaizumi had keep his grip on after that, like he didn't want to be alone that night, either.

But most of all, if Oikawa had to remember anything about the night of December 7th, 1984, it'd be the way the silence hung, much thicker than a winter blizzard, and a different animal than their usual quiet. It was the few seconds before that first _anything_ , and Oikawa had taken it like a journey, coming across forks in winding roads, head pounding to the beat of _should I kiss him_ or _should I not._  

(And he knows the answer—he shouldn't have. Never in a thousand years, or a million, and even the sun were to explode and the world were to end tomorrow.)

(He had done it, anyway.)

Oikawa remembers kissing him soft and sure, with a hand on the back of a bristly head, also freshly showered. He still remembers the scent of his soap—the minty kind—on his nape. He remembers how easily clothes could slide off if you really needed them to, and what skin felt like on another person's so intimately.

He remembers how, even in the ease of having sex with Iwaizumi Hajime, it all still felt like crashing. 

And in things he doesn't really want to remember, but has to, Oikawa replays the conversation from _after-the-fact_ , clothes scrambled to be put on, breaths still trying to be caught:

 _“Iwa-chan. Iwa-chan, please talk to me,"_ Oikawa had said, even though he had a hard enough time conjuring up his own words at the time.

_“We just—I can’t believe—”_

_“It was just one time. One time right?”_ Oikawa had asked, trying to convince himself too, still engraving the sentiment in his head to this day.

_“Yeah. That’s it. Just that once.”_

_“Okay. Not again, even if you were the last person on earth,"_ Oikawa, panicked, had rambled on, mind racing a million miles a minute, words leaving without thinking, ready to take them back at the instant. _Don't say yes,_ Oikawa remembers insisting to himself, hoping that his pleads might reach Iwaizumi. _Don't say yes. Please don't say yes. Please see through me._

But a _“yeah"_ had passed through Iwaizumi's lips anyway, sharp and sudden and cutting. It had came only a whisper, but the worst kind, like wind on a day already below freezing, and Oikawa could do nothing but breeze along his own feints.

 _“Not even if the world were to end tomorrow,"_ he had dismissed Iwaizumi for good, condemning any chance at any regular union, because he had been naked enough, been seen enough, been heard enough for that night and all lifetimes to come. _It was fine_. _Just fine—_ after such reckonings, it had been just a matter of buttoning up his shirt, tying his shoes, and actually going home this time, away from the crash site. Because that was the way it was meant to be— _even if the world were to end tomorrow._

_But still:_

_What a terrible thing to say_ , Oikawa remembers thinking, simply waving back to Iwaizumi in the snow. _Just wave, just wave, just wave—just wave and it'll all be fine._ Just wave and walk away from the wreckage. 

Butit might be the next part of the dream, _the memory_ , that gets to Oikawa the most. Through a storm's fury, he had insisted that maybe he was seeing things at the time—because it couldn't always be possible to always have Iwaizumi Hajime in his line of vision, his scope of hearing, especially in the heavy haze of snow and the way it muted the night around them. Still, like all the other times he's dreamed this little dream, Iwaizumi Hajime dares to say it, _god he really says it,_ and Oikawa feels compelled to put the vision out of its misery.

 

* * *

 

_"Come back."_

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

With a small gasp and a hand on his shoulder, Oikawa wakes up from the blankness of snow and jolts up in his seat. Like he's been asleep for the last one hundred years, he peers straight at Iwaizumi with a frown, all scrunched up under his sweater with his head on the window and the engine still running under them.

"We're here," Iwaizumi says plainly, looking out ahead. "I didn't think we'd make it, but I think we're just in time."

"Where are we?"

"Where you said you wanted to be. Somewhere to see the sunrise, right?"

At this, Oikawa nods his drowsiness away and smacks his cheeks to dispel any grogginess. With Iwaizumi, he hops out of the car, makes one final stretch, and understands the meaning of the great outdoors.

"Iwa-chan...this is—"

"I know we haven't been here since we were kids, but I figure would be a better time than any."

Ahead of them, the sky has put on a gentle lightness in between hills, a pale pastel for the sunrise to come, when he realizes just where Iwaizumi's taken him. A burgeoning tourist hotspot nestled in the mountains of the Kattadake, Kumanodake, and Goshikidake, Miyagi's famed _Okama_ lake has been left vacant for the both of them, its crater pool like an heirloom mirror or a god's favorite cooking pot. Oikawa makes out how golden bits flit across the surface and how the impossible fish dash in their last day, and watches the dead grasses dance for the shore in newfound life. At once, like some peasant in a fairy tale, he feels himself a prince in a place that only the two of them might know.

"Iwa-chan!" When he spins back to face Iwaizumi, notices how he's got himself leaned against the Datsun like this is all nothing, Oikawa pulls him by the hand, leads him further towards Okama lake, and nearly trips over himself in the process. Iwaizumi laughs at him, just shaking his head, but doesn't chide Oikawa any further this time.

"There shouldn't be fish here," Oikawa observes, not daring to touch the water. "Haven't you heard the stories? The gods made the _Okama_ too acidic for any of us to touch—the humans, _the fish_ even _—_ but here they are, swimming like it's the Pacific!"

Iwaizumi scoffs. "It's like you told me before."

Oikawa plays along. " _Ohhh?_ And what did I tell you?"

"That the world is pulling out all its last stops," Iwaizumi says. "Like fireworks at a finale. And _that if it shall cease to exist, it will exhaust every oddity and make every phenomenon known._ "

" _Poetic_ ," Oikawa muses. "I can't believe you remembered that on the top of your head."

At the observation, Iwaizumi tries to laugh again, but lets it fall flat. He's the one to walk on now, letting his shoes skim the water without getting too wet, and cranes his head up to the sky before settling right back down to earth. With sun almost ready to rise, Iwaizumi places his sights on Oikawa instead, and Oikawa briefly wonders if he could ever be so bright for him.

"Like I'd forget anything today," he gruffs out in delayed retorts, lower than his usual tones. He shakes his head, the flick of it saying _forget it_ , and peers away back to the lake's surface. Oikawa follows suit, just as the sun begins to rise, and squints at the official start of their last day. 

For all the times the _Okama_ lake has been noted for its five colors, Oikawa thinks that the number might not do any of this justice. Gold turns into glittering, and the fish scatter and reflect the light off pearly scales. A pale daybreak casts itself on the mountain ranges near and far, leaving thick and cool shadows over a stretch of the water's surface, while the oncoming promise of a _light blue_ has come to reclaim its place on the lake's skin. When Oikawa finds it hard to keep his gaze on any one place in the sky, on the earth, by the water, he tells himself that such spectacles are _just so_ for the last day on the earth. When he sees the full moon, faded and bathing behind the oncoming clouds, he pretends he cannot see the comet coming too. 

"It's nice, isn't it?" Oikawa asks out of the quiet, just to distract himself from the churning in his stomach. "That feeling at the back of your neck when you're up early and you're ready for it. It's kind of chilly, but pleasant almost. Like you've got an entire world working for you."

"Like endorphins after a long run," Iwaizumi suggests. 

"Or a billion lucky days." 

"Or money for the lunar new year."

"And winning the lottery with it." 

Iwaizumi smirks at the thought, and the two of them peer down at their reflections. "Maybe that's the case."

"What is?" Oikawa asks. "Winning the lottery? That'd kind of suck on a day like this."

"No. All of it. The endorphins, the lucky days, the world on your side."

And just like that, like nothing else could go wrong, the sun comes up and stays to hang in the sky, greeting the rest of the prefecture with the shyest beams. Oikawa backs away from the lake like the moment for awe has passed, and lets himself remember everything in an instant. Back at Iwaizumi's side, he watches him take out the list, bottom of the sheet ripped off, and cross the first point off the top of the page.

"And how would you rate that sunrise, Oikawa?" Iwaizumi asks. "To your satisfaction?" 

With something smug, Oikawa just tosses his head back, letting himself see their second Eden of the day for the very last time. He bids it a silent _goodbye,_ traces his sights back to the torn list in Iwaizumi's hands, and shrugs like all of this is nothing.

"Decent," Oikawa jokes when he meanders to the driver's side of the Datsun, hands flirting with the steering wheel. "Six out of ten."

"Spoiled brat."

Without further fanfare, and possibly still caught in his reveries, Iwaizumi just rolls his eyes and gives his spot up at the helm. When he then puts the list back in his pocket, the fray of its tears still in periphery, Oikawa convinces himself that maybe it was never in tact to begin with.

"So," Oikawa begins to ask, changing the subject, "are you going to teach me to drive this thing, or what?"

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_"Iwa-chan?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"How do you decide who to spend the end of the world with?"_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

"You ruined her."

" _Her_? Next you're going to tell me you gave _her_ a name."

"I did. _Min_ -chan."

"Because it's _mint_ colored _?_ I can't believe you'd get so sentimental on me, Iwa-chan."

On the snow-dusted mountainside, sun-drenched and paths unclean, it is just past eight o'clock in the morning, December 2nd, 1985, when the two of them say goodbye to their _Nissan Datsun NL320,_ stranded by the roadside and stuck in a shallow ditch.

"I should've never let you drive."

"Well, at least we have our health," Oikawa muses.

"Your arm could be _broken_ in three places," Iwaizumi reprimands, flicking Oikawa's elbow softly with the point of his fingers.

"But I'm telling you, I'd _know_ if it were broken," insists Oikawa. "It's just a scratch, and you patched me well enough anyway!" He raises his right arm in a slight wince, showing off a makeshift bandage made by the rip of Iwaizumi's undershirt and a tightly bound knot. 

Still mourning the truck (and partially the fact that it had been—to be blunt— _stolen property_ ), Iwaizumi pats the mangled hood of it before watching the metal come off altogether. He coughs up from the thick exhaust coming from the engine, shaking his head before insisting they get away from his beloved _Min-chan_ altogether.

"It'll be okay, Iwa-chan." It was almost comical to see Iwaizumi lamenting about a car he'd only known for a good two hours at most. Oikawa just shakes off any silly semblance of _envy_ over a truck now departed, with its nose head-first in the dirt. As a consolation prize, a _sorry_ for not understanding the finer points of _stick shift_ , Oikawa steals the keys from the ignition before departing from the crash site. With this, Iwaizumi reluctantly takes them from his open hand, marches on, and does his best to ignore Oikawa altogether.

"Aw, Iwa-chan, don't be so mad." On the road, Oikawa looks ahead and surmises that they're about an hour away from town on foot, and only if by ambling.

Keeping such slow paces, it only reminds Oikawa of their usual morning runs, roads like this moving past them at sprinted speeds, and reminds himself of the places they get to see in regular motion. When they come upon what he thinks is falling snow at first, Oikawa makes out the trees and the impossible white leaves they sprout for the occasion—smaller than sakura petals, even—and stops to admire such flurries. Undeterred, Iwaizumi only keeps going down the road, brushing the foliage off his shoulder.

"Come on," Iwaizumi calls. "You're going to be seeing that sort of stuff all day. We've got other things to do, and I want to make sure we make a dent in this list."

"But haven't we done a lot already?" Oikawa pouts. "You know, it wouldn't kill you to be a little more romantic about this."

" _You're_ the one who wanted to complete everything in the letter."

"I know, I know, but we have time—"

"No, we don't!" Iwaizumi shouts back at him, letting this new kind of winter storm come between them. Between them and all around, the leaves continue to rain down the path, forging the same sort of silence Oikawa still dreams about when he's not careful. In a scene not meant to be remembered, he thinks about standing in the snow again, shoes barely tied with a friend in the dust, and seeks not to recreate such gulfs. Without all his taunts and his teases, he only leaves room for one play: not a hand to wave— _just wave_ , _just wave, just wave him away—_ but one outstretched, with leaflings to catch in his palm.

"If you want do the next thing on your list," Oikawa insists, "you're going to have to lead me out of this place first." And even though Oikawa knows how unreasonable he's being, and how Iwaizumi surely must see it by now too, he stiffens up a lip and brushes the winter leaves off his palm. Ever hesitant, he slides his hand over Oikawa's right after, millimeter by millimeter, until they are unabashed, until they are held, and follows the request with no further complaint.

"So let's go, then."

And with that, nothing more is said about _Min-chan_ or broken arms, or pit stops or car crashes. Mostly unscathed, the two of them find _home_ again soon after, forests dwarfed by hilltop homes and the playing ease of AM radios, and let go only to remain close once more.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Their mothers had been friends before they were born, so accomplishing number _seven_ on the list had been no great task. When two people are best friends, ' _having a meal with each of our families'_ should be nothing but a reflex by now, all marked by the usual favorites and exchanged old-as-time recipes; Oikawa knows full well to count it as one of their more mundane encounters of the day (if not the most comfortable) and to enjoy it before heading out again later. This is what he tells himself when he helps Iwaizumi's mother carry out a whole jar's worth of _umeboshi_ and plates of grilled mackerel pike, all while Iwaizumi's been tasked with soft boiling the eggs and tending after a tofu laden miso soup.

Breakfast is a makeshift feast. Both families have assembled on the back ledge of the Oikawa family house, seated at the _kotatsus_ that should be in dens and huddled under the shared blankets from bedrooms; they use mismatched chopsticks and eat the foods they'd usually abhor; they let their bowls and glass spoons mingle from different sets. At the spectacle of a boiling _oden_ pots and mounds of rice and other fixings, Oikawa equates this more like a holiday party than a gathering at the end of the world, and sneers at the incoming comet for its lack of invite.

"—and I said, _mark my words_ , my son Hajime will be taller than Tooru-kun."

"Otou-san, don’t get my hopes up,” Iwaizumi laughs with his father, almost spilling the giant pot of miso soup in his mittened hands. When he sets it down on one of the tables, he places himself next to Oikawa and takes a bowl into his hands.

“It could still happen,” his father says with a grin, while Oikawa’s father just rolls his eyes across the table and insists that the time for _increased height_ has passed. When they challenge each other to a _dashimaki_ egg eating contest next, all for the title of _Best Father in the Prefecture,_ their two sons let them get at it down the way, and eat their fill in the meanwhile.

“How’s your arm?” Iwaizumi asks, in between bites of rice. “I saw your mother fuss about it when we first got back.”

“Still not broken,” Oikawa insists. “I told her I fell down during a foot race with you.”

“A _foot race_?”

Oikawa nods, peering past the table’s spread. “Yep,” he affirms, knowing no one else is listening to them. “I figured it’d be better if they _didn’t_ know about the whole car-crashing thing.”

“I wonder if the owners will go looking for Min _-_ chan,” Iwaizumi sighs out, dreamier than ever.

“I doubt it,” Oikawa tells him. “Everyone’s celebrating like this, don’t you know?”

Iwaizumi just smiles uneasily, hiding it quickly behind his rice bowl. “It’s weird,” he remarks. “You’d think everything would be on fire by now, and everyone’s just sitting down and eating breakfast.”

“Almost like things might okay, after all.”

Oikawa sneaks another glance up at the comet before reminding himself it’s not worth it. Overhead, the air hangs crisp like mid autumn instead of winter, breeze soft for those trying to have their breakfasts outside. Over the fences and down the street, Oikawa hears the other families clink their glasses and clap their hands in each “ _thank you for this meal,”_ and thinks of his own. He spots his father, with the reading glasses and love of _Kabuki_ , his mother and her records collection and pearl earrings, his older brother in the _Lotte Orions_ baseball cap (and, most importantly, watching his son as a father in his own right), and his grandfather, a war veteran in a tweed suit. His four aunts, all gossips of the highest caliber, whisper about the secret ingredients used in their broth bases, while his nephew, Takeru, bounces a basketball down the alley. A baby, a newborn girl named Oikawa Hana, rests in a basket, fussy for formula and her mother's arms.

Iwaizumi's family, although smaller, does not breed any less life. His mother (also a purveyor of vinyl records) stands tall at the table, a true captain of a chef if Oikawa had ever seen one, a perfect _brash_ to the other mother's _quietly bold._ Iwaizumi's father, short and wide, had been a power pitcher for the said _Lotte Orions_ , before retiring and settling in the prefecture. Their dog, a nineteen year old shiba inu named Rinko, seems to favor Iwaizumi's grandmother the most of all, content to drape herself over the woman's lap, all with little awareness for what's to come.

But the funny thing about having someone sit right next to you, for all those years and years, is you might forget they were there in the first place. Sitting this way, whether it be on the sidelines, or school buses, or _kotatsus_ , has become a reflex by now, and one they're not willing to break even for _last days_ or armageddons. To this effect, Oikawa just lets himself scoot closer to Iwaizumi Hajime under the guise of making more room for one of his aunts at the table, letting the sides of their hands graze under the cloth of the covered table. Slyly, Oikawa just pinches at the skin at the back of Iwaizumi's hand, watches him nearly spit out his tea and ask, "what the hell was that for?"

From there, Oikawa just lets himself observe the youngest member of the Iwaizumi family. _Hajime._ He watches the usual way he takes a morsel of rice and holds his chopsticks, the gentle way he calls for his mother, tones lower, but sweeter somehow, the way he pats Rinko and calls for her to sit with him. And like the opposing team at a volleyball match, he predicts what he might do next: pat some more rice into his bowl, clink his cup with one of Oikawa's aunts, sneak Rinko some breakfast on his lap—with motions known, the plays he might follow next, Iwaizumi defies all forecasts and does none of those things. With a simple swipe, natural as day folding into another, he just takes Oikawa's hand under the table, presses it in holding instead of letting it skirt, and lets it remain, unseen to everyone else.

"Remember when you said you'd _marry_ Hajime-kun, Tooru?" one of his aunts says. "Oh you were always so clingy with him."

"Well, I don't think anything's changed, if I do say so myself," another one coos, and Oikawa goes red as all hell. He doesn't let go though, as much as it makes his blushing worse. 

By now, Oikawa knows they should be used to the feel of each other's grips, always pulling the other forward. Not counting today, it's always been a matter of latching on and letting go, ever since they were kids. He remembers Iwaizumi dragging him to the batting cages when they were six (and how Oikawa quickly learned _baseball_ wasn't for him). He remembers yanking Iwaizumi down a couple of rows at their first volleyball match at seven, insisting that they had to see _everything_ up close, and how Iwaizumi did not object in the slightest that time. He remembers every one of their losses from then on, _eight_ to _ten_ to _seventeen,_ and every hand-shaken agreement that _they'd win it all the next time_. He remembers every time he didn't want to let go at all, even when he had confessions to respond to and girlfriends to please. He remembers holding his hand so hard and so constant on that night in his bed, that he still felt the lines of Iwaizumi's palms for days to come after.

So Oikawa knows he should be used to it. He knows, he knows, knows, and yet, _but still:_

"Oikawa!" Iwaizumi shouts after him, when he storms away from the breakfast spread, the kotatsus, the two families.

When he marches back into his room, Oikawa slides the door closed, and lets himself pace.

Oikawa knows he should be used to it. _So calm down._ (He paces anyway.) He knows he shouldn’t think about how two grips could fit together so well. _So calm down._ (He speeds up anyway.) And because he can’t help it, _because he can never help it,_ he thinks about the matter of cosmic alignments, and how they really might exist—because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t get to be next door neighbors, or a setter and an ace, or best friends. But he starts thinking about how maybe that’s all they were _ever_ meant to be, and that it might be _just so_ , _just right_ for things like the end of the very, very end. _So calm down,_ he tells himself for the umpteenth time today, and probably not the last. _It’s nothing. We’re nothing. Calm down._  

(He slides another door open anyway, to an old house on a hill with endless exits. He leaves— _because he can—_ and watches the day above him eclipse into an unnatural night once more.)

_So just get away, ‘cause the world is gonna crash on you again._

(But because it is _just so,_ and they were never meant to sit down at kotatsus and tea cups and rice bowls with the rest of the day on their list, a certain _Iwaizumi Hajime,_ not too far on his tail with a line of stars above like breadcrumbs _,_ runs after him anyway.)

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

By midday, December 2nd, 1985, the sky has turned itself into a planetarium, complete with an unabashed mix of stars, a visible moon, and an incoming comet twice its size. In what Oikawa's penned _a tidal eclipse,_ he watches the horizon fade into heavy hues of the darkest blue all the way to a twilight's lavender, colors waxing and waning in this newest cosmic development. Shadows lengthen and disappear behind the trees and telephone poles, making openings for Oikawa to slip into. When he feels himself calm down enough, chest no longer pounding, palms no longer sweaty and shaking, he knows to think himself ridiculous. _Runners are not allowed at the end of the world,_ he thinks, when he smacks his own cheeks for doing just that.

"Twenty."

Oikawa scowls behind his side of the telephone pole when Iwaizumi Hajime finds him anyway, all content to lean against the other side with his arms crossed and casual. Over his shoulder, Oikawa makes out the corner of the list, wavering by the wind and ready for the next task to be completed.

" _Twenty,_ " Iwaizumi repeats once more. " _Play a game of hide and seek with him._ " At this, Oikawa just clicks his tongue and seeks to stay an unbeliever, to defy the fact that Iwaizumi Hajime could be so _suave_ , and always so blunt in a way until perfect smoothness.

"Why don't you give yourself a medal, then?" Oikawa pouts. " _You found me_."

"Yeah, because we have the rest of a list to finish," Iwaizumi says, swinging over to the other side of the telephone pole. "I mean, what's gotten into you? It's not like we have a lot of time to finish, and we can't waste any of it—"

Oikawa stops Iwaizumi dead in his tracks with just a single look, usually saved for volleyball matches and the other setters he'd like to beat. He lets the ache of it sear into his sockets, right to the point where he thinks he might cry (but _won't, no way in hell_ ), and lets himself squint in resistance instead. And just as he thinks, _no, you won't see me down,_ Oikawa realizes that he's already got his knees drawn and crouched like a child lost in the park. When he stares up at Iwaizumi, all with nowhere to go, he decides to hide altogether, tired in the bend of folded arms.

"Can I give you a hypothetical, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa asks without looking, trying not to let his voice crack.

"Sure," Iwaizumi answers quite gently, still standing tall. "Try me." 

"Let's say the world were to end today," Oikawa suggests. "And you knew, as soon as you got up, because you felt something funny in the air. Like electricity. You go into the den, and _okaa-san_ is already preparing last meals and you've got _onii-chan_ apologizing to old girlfriends over the phone. Everyone in the house is mourning like they would for the oldest man on earth on his death day— _oh, well, I guess we've done the most we can do! Oh, at least we've lived to the fullest!_ "

"But you know what? The horrible thing is, you know you haven't. Of course not, because you've pictured it a thousand times, _a million times_ , what your life was going to look like. And this isn't it. Not by any means! So you pretend and pretend and _pretend_. You pay off your lost bets like you'll live to win one tomorrow. You leave the house for school, even though it's _one o'clock in the morning_ and you know none of this is all right. You run around town with your best town, sneaking to _volcanic lakes_ and stealing cars, because, _sure_ , this is normal, _just a normal day_ , but you know what? It's not," Oikawa finally takes a proper breath, breaking into an ugly, disastrous sob, even if he'll only permit himself one. "It's _not_. And you start to wonder why you've wasted so much time and—" 

"Oikawa."

"And you just to wonder why you've waited so many _years and_ —"

"Hey!"

" _What_?" Oikawa shouts, still buried in his sleeves.

"Won't you look at me?" Iwaizumi asks. "Just for a second? I promise I'll let you go back to your _hypotheticals_."

"No," Oikawa cracks out.

"But _look—_ "

"I said _no—_ " Oikawa insists, accidentally peeking up anyway, all ready to hit back with the utmost fury. But it dissipates right away when he sees it, pinched for Oikawa to see, small and delicate but still strong enough to fight—a tiny white flower twirled by rolled fingertips, like that itself could cure all the world's ills.

"What's this?" Oikawa asks, rubbing at his eyes, knowing how much of a ruddy mess he probably is by now.

"The flower I kept behind your ear," Iwaizumi answers him, crouched to his level. "To think of the things it's survived today." At this, Iwaizumi begins to laugh, small and restrained before growing into something hearty. "A fucking _car crash,_ and it still looks like you could put it in a _wedding bouquet!"_ he continues, barely able to keep it together.

"You know, it might last longer than us, at this rate!"

And because laughter is contagious in the worst possible ways, and spread when two people need it the most, Oikawa finds himself doing the same, all unrestrained and breathless. He _knows_ he hasn't laughed this hard in a while. This goes on for some time, on and on until he realizes he's crying again, mouth so labored that he's forgotten the sound of his _hypotheticals, and what just to say,_ and just ends his fits in silence. It hangs deep and unforgiving for the both of them after that, laughter come and gone like a myth's great flood. Eyes closed, Oikawa guards himself from the quiet, pretends once more that everything will be okay, and knows for once, that he cannot make it so. 

"Oikawa," Iwaizumi calls after him, and Oikawa does nothing but stare up this time. He blinks away a tear, feeling it get caught in the corner of his eye.

And like that time in the flower shop, Iwaizumi swoops in after him. Close and with a careful thumb, he wipes away any evidence of crying, shaking his head until their foreheads are touching and breathing slows into something easy.

"Look, we're crossing more points off the list without even trying," Iwaizumi says when they separate and he shows the firm line of a grin. "Number two."

Oikawa straightens up, reminding himself to stand. Iwaizumi follows, because neither one of them have ever been good at staying down or staying still.

"And what's number two again?" Oikawa asks with a cleared throat, on the move again, down the block with night on their tails. "Tell the world I'm a pretty crier? Because despite what you say—"

"Oh, shut it." 

"Then what could it be?"

Iwaizumi doesn't answer at first. 

"Iwa-chan."

" _Don’t be afraid to cry_ , and we’ve already done just that," Iwaizumi tells him, just as the eclipse lightens once more, and stars hide behind clouds. They both look up, know the meaning of _clouded senses_ , the propensity to cry but not move on from it, and remember that they must forge on despite all the things that keep them static. 

"Mayumi-chan didn't mess around."

"You're telling me."

"So on the track," Oikawa remembers. "You did cry, then."

"Yeah? So?" Iwaizumi asks. "The world's about to end, don't you know?"

"Oh, do I." 

At this, Oikawa feels the heaviness churn in his stomach once more. But like all the others running on empty, he keeps on the path anyway, buries it all away for later, and repeats the words. _Oh, do I,_ he mouths once more—bitter and sweet and everything in between— _and that's why we have to conquer it._  

It is on December 2nd, 1985, when Oikawa says his first _thank you_ to Iwaizumi Hajime that night. 

 _"Thank you for always finding me."_  

He keeps it under his breath, barely, _just barely_ hummed into words.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

And so the rest of the day goes. It is one kept on their feet, sky bouncing between light and blindness, clouds building like great mountains in the midst of it. Strange stars inhabit the twilight, bigger and brighter like they might collide with the earth too today, and it's almost as if some have fallen to adorn the prefecture's hills already.

Past the upper limits and horizon below, fireflies continue to dance like the tiniest cosmic messengers in the lower atmosphere, silent but constantly on the go. In musing, with hands reaching to catch, Oikawa wonders if he was ever one in a past life. _"Won't you keep your eyes on me?"_ he might have said with the feint of his light shows, diversions his forte. Once more—and because the mind tends to race on days like this—he wonders if _natural adaptation_ is something one can learn through the likes of reincarnation, because he knows, more than anyone or anything, the precarious balance between flash and substance. So when he watches Iwaizumi try to catch a firefly his hands down the field, letting one flirt on the tip of an outstretched index finger, Oikawa feels the need to scold the creature. _Use your voice! Don't just skirt around things! Iwa-Chan deserves better!_  

"Hey, Iwa-chan!" Oikawa calls out across to him, ready to do just so. He realizes then that he's not even sure what to say, because he hasn't quite put anything into words, and that all he's got is empty air and the ability to make it into something pretty. "I know about ongoing love affair with _bugs,"_ he continues instead, "but we have a list to finish!" He kicks himself for this, but decides they still have time, anyway.

(The comet in the sky, bigger than a second moon and spying behind the billowing clouds, seeks to say otherwise. Oikawa turns his nose up at it.)

"Well, we have four left on this list," Iwaizumi says. He lists them off, voice laced with fatigue after a day of making the town theirs, and Oikawa listens.

 _Number six: share something._  

_Number fourteen: find our favorite thing to do together._

_Number twenty-nine: tell him a secret._

_Number eleven: let him tell you a secret of his own._

After this, they set off to finish their tasks, and Oikawa wonders why Iwaizumi had left those four for last. On the matter of silence and the fireflies before, he begins to suspect that his best friend might be a mind reader of sorts, and that he'd _never_ get a secret out of him now for such a breach of _privacy;_ but Oikawa knows, in all seriousness, to start thinking of one. When they come into another mostly empty street, waving to other _Seijou_ kids, their ex-girlfriends, their neighbors, their teachers, Oikawa's already started to sort his secrets out, piling them into ones to tell and ones to keep. 

 _When we were kids, you gave me your milk bread at lunch one day when I forgot mine. It's been my favorite ever since._ (No, too mushy.)

 _I don't love that we might be going to different universities._ (No, too needy. And irrelevant, considering the end of times, he thinks.)

"Hey, Oikawa," Iwaizumi calls, pointing to a convenience store down the way. "Wanna share something from there? Should be easy enough to grab a bag of chips or something."

Oikawa snaps out of thought, in time to disapprove. " _A bag of chips?_ "

"Fine, _ice cream_ , or something."

"That's more like it," Oikawa says with a small laugh. When they continue down the street, he wonders more about the matter of secrets, letting a few more come to him. Like, _tell him about that favorite action figure you broke when you were six, but how you never said a thing because you were afraid he'd stop being your friend._ (No, don't be silly.) 

 _Or how about that time you really couldn't stomach the name "Emiko" for a month, because that had been the name of Iwa-chan's first girlfriend earlier this year?_ (No, absolutely not.)

 _Or the way you cheered when they broke up not long after that?_ (No, no, no.)

 _Or how, past every half hearted attempt you made at not spying on them, you proclaimed, nonetheless, that you could probably do everything that she did, but a million times better?_  

(No. Come on. Let's not go there.)

By the time Oikawa corrects himself from the haze once more, and still with no secrets worth telling, he nearly bumps into Iwaizumi's back, and thinks of scolding him for the sudden stop. 

"Hey, Iwa-chan, what's going—"

" _They're together_?" Iwaizumi asks at the store display, smile spreading across his face like he's seen a world wonder. Oikawa follows, guessing that maybe he's seen two of their home room teachers _kissing_ or that sort of nonsense, but it is _no such thing:_ in the window, Oikawa peers close to make out the sight of two of the world’s quietest looters.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa sit against the shelves in an aisle to share half-opened bags of candy and other closed convenience store fare. With their shoes kicked off and sleeves rolled up, the wrappers at their feet and unfinished rice balls in their hands, Oikawa watches how perfect such a place could be for them, such an _insignificant_ , _everyday_ place made into some new kind of world, and turns to see Iwaizumi come to the same realizations. Feeling that he might be intruding in some personal sanctuary (but watching full on anyway), Oikawa winces out a smile when Matsukawa reaches over for a kiss. He feels himself shiver when Hanamaki, laughing into it, kisses him right back. 

“Since this morning, I think,” Oikawa edges out, so the quiet does not consume them. He inches closer, just so the distance doesn’t feel so wide.

And it is on December 2nd, 1985, that Oikawa decides that happiness can hurt, too. _More than anything_ , he thinks, so bad that he wouldn’t even dare to call it bittersweet. He doesn’t want to call it bitter. He watches how the two of them, hand in hand, just get up and disappear further down the aisle, talking on with their usual faces like nothing’s really changed. He wonders how people can align so easily. He wonders how they can come so close without crashing.

“Well, we should let them have their day, then.”

Ahead of him, and probably tired of spectacles, Iwaizumi goes to a vending machine, kicks it like he expects something to actually come out, and produces a single can of vanilla cappuccino. He holds it up in a small victory, a prize to share, and continues down the road with Oikawa to follow.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa feels the need to hail. “Iwa-chan!” 

“Yeah?”

When he thinks of secrets once more, the ones he cannot bare to tell or make tangible just yet, he shrinks back. In turn, Iwaizumi mashes his lips closed too, inhales all the dead air between them, and goes on.

“You don’t have to be so disgusted, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa teases behind him, plastering a grin on his face for added measure. “I know it’s a big change and all, but no need to kick a vending machine over it!”

Iwaizumi stops once more, but Oikawa has enough sense not to walk into him this time. He itches at the back of his head, nose at the ground, before staring over his shoulder.

“I’m not _disgusted_ , Oikawa. Why would it ever be that?” Iwaizumi asks, all hushed, and Oikawa lets his facades falter. He knows he isn’t. He knew what answers he’d be getting, and that sometimes it’s all a matter of _fishing_.

“Yeah?” Oikawa asks further. “So then what is it? What are you so riled up for?”

At this, Iwaizumi does not answer. He just cracks the tab open on the cappuccino, holds it up instead of talking, and waits for Oikawa to join him at his side. When Oikawa does from a couple steps behind, he takes the can into his hands, shameless in letting their fingers meet in the exchange this time around, and finds Iwaizumi in the same pace. 

“So, next on the list. Finding our favorites,” Iwaizumi proclaims.

Oikawa laughs out, true but small. “That one shouldn’t be too hard.” 

And with nothing but a scoff as a concession, Iwaizumi looks off to the side, says that maybe they should practice their receives then, and lets Oikawa give the coffee back to him.

They exchange it until not a drop is left, empty can exchanged for a volleyball to throw around at the park, and let the promise of that carry them on for a better part of the afternoon. Once more, in the midst of tasks to complete and tosses to be perfectly received, Oikawa stares up as he waits for Iwaizumi to come back with a stolen ball from the Seijou gym.

He wonders up to skies that can’t make up their minds, refuses to call what he’s about to say _a secret_ , and confesses anyway.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_I don’t love that the world is ending._

_Because I still have so many things to say to you._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

“So?”

“So, what?”

“How would you live it? If the world wasn’t ending today?”

“We’re not telling secrets yet, Oikawa.”

“These aren’t secrets. They’re _hypotheticals._ ” 

On December 2nd, 1985, Iwaizumi receives a ball purposely tossed low. “What’s with you and hypotheticals today?” he asks Oikawa right back, going after the ball, getting on his knees, and scuffing his pants with dirt. He pops back up, spine aligned, when he sends it flying back to the other side, and hears another _boom_ sound across the sky. For the fifth time in the last hour, fireworks spread across their newest eclipse in incredible neon, lighting up all of Miyagi and the prefectures neighboring it.

“You go first,” he says.

When Oikawa catches the ball without bumping it back, he lets himself get carried away by the light show, too. Like he’s watching small suns, he feels himself blinded by the colors before coming to his senses once more. In blankness, he even almost misses Iwaizumi’s answer, and tosses the ball back to him to get his attention.

“What?” Oikawa inquires.

“I said _you go first_ ,” Iwaizumi answers, receiving the ball once more without missing a beat. “How would you spend it?”

“You’re asking me to map out my whole life,” Oikawa says. 

“Hey, _you’re_ the one who asked in the first place,” retorts Iwaizumi, letting their stolen ball roll down the hill in distraction. “Just try the best you can, ‘cause it’s not like I have it all figured out, either.”

“I suppose—and _well_ ,” Oikawa sighs out, “I don’t know. I’d like to graduate and pass all my exams. Maybe make top twenty-five for marks, if I really tried hard enough. Get into a good university for the spring. But I guess that’s the stuff I’m supposed to want, right?”

“I didn’t ask you what you’re _supposed_ to want.” Iwaizumi affirms with a shrug, and the two of them brush past the thistles on their way down the hill. It is not terribly steep, but Oikawa holds on to the back of Iwaizumi’s jacket for extra grip nonetheless like it might be, and lets himself stay. Overhead, like setting them off will warn off any cosmic collision, a brocade of fireworks bloom once more, demanding the utmost attention.

“I want to go to the olympics,” Oikawa blurts out. “I want to go to the 1988 summer games in Seoul, and 1992 in Barcelona, and 1996 _wherever_ else. However long it takes to get to the gold around my neck. _No,_ actually. _Our necks_ ,” he corrects himself, so sure of it he might be wearing it on his face. He feels the lines form in his forehead without trying to subdue them. “And you know what else I’d like? An apartment in Tokyo, a _nice_ one by the trains, along with two cats, plants that won’t die on me, and a fridge that’ll stock itself. I want a nice record collection like okaasan has, even if _cassettes_ are all the rage right now, and comfortable house slippers. I’d like a bakery on the corner to get my breakfast, and a park to run in, and— _oh,_ well, a second home by Okama lake.”

“They wouldn’t let you build a house right on Okama lake, Oikawa.” Iwaizumi laughs at the breadth Oikawa takes to name all of these things. “But you’ve put a lot of thought into this,” he remarks, picking the ball out of the athel pines and brushing the leather clean. He looks fondly at it before launching it up with an underhand serve, and the two of them watch it land back up on top of the hill. 

“And you?” Oikawa asks. “I told you mine.”

“Well, for _one_ ,” Iwaizumi starts, “I wouldn’t have two cats. I’d want a dog. _Rinko_ , if she was still around, or a mutt I’d adopt from a pound. And I think I’d stay in the city for university, just because it’d be easier to have everything around, but I’m not sure if I’d want to live there forever, to be honest.” At this, Oikawa deflates slightly, but keeps listening. “After everything was said and done, volleyball and _careers_ and whatnot, I might just come back here. I like it here.” 

“Sounds like we might want different things,” Oikawa says, as much as he doesn’t want to.

“That doesn’t mean that’s a bad thing. I wouldn't have plane on disappearing out of your life anyway,” Iwaizumi explains.

"Life pulls you in different directions," Oikawa says, but Iwaizumi does not waver. 

"Yeah, but it also has a way of working out, doesn't it?"

At once and at odds, the two of them go silent once more. Oikawa sets himself on the grass, Iwaizumi following not long after, and the two of them watch another round of fireworks go off in the sky. Pistils spread out thin prongs of light, making supernovas in the center, while the gods grow peonies by pyrotechnics. Quietly, and perhaps the tiniest bit smug, he thinks back to the flower hiding behind his ear, tells himself how much better it is than the fireworks that crash and fade, and sifts back a finger to make sure it’s still in place.

When he realizes it isn’t, he jumps up, startles Iwaizumi in the process, and scans the grasses below.

“No! No, _no,_ it can’t be.”

“What? What’s wrong now?” Iwaizumi asks, searching around with him.

“The... _behind my ear,_ it was just on me, I swear!” insists Oikawa, still frantically pressing his finger to the curve of his lobe. “We have to find it. We have to—”

“Oikawa...it’s probably gone by _now_ —”

“But _you_ —!” Oikawa stops himself before saying it, but he knows the damage has been done. He shakes his head, taking a deep breath without feeling better, and drags a hand down his cheek. “I told myself I wouldn’t lose it.”

“It’s just a flower,” Iwaizumi says, and that cuts Oikawa to the core. “A small thing. You could’ve lost it anywhere.”

“Yeah, but the point was that I _didn’t_. It was going to last until the end of this day,” argues Oikawa. “We have to look,” he urges on, getting his shoes muddied in the dirt, hooking onto the earth beneath him. “We have to find it,” he insists further, and he feels Iwaizumi reach for his hand behind him on the hill’s incline.

“ _Oikawa_ —”

“We have to!” 

"No!" 

"Please!" 

“ _Why_?"

"What do you mean _'why'_?"

"Why is this so important to you?”

Oikawa turns around, eyes wide and teeth snarling, tears almost on the verge of forming. Ready to sting and past the point of pleasant condescension.

“Do you really have to ask me that, Iwa-chan?”

Iwaizumi softens at once, shoulders low and gaze softening to squint. He opens his mouth to say it, a name he’s said a million times before, _Oikawa,_ but it never comes. Instead another does, rarely used, but used when it matters, and Oikawa thinks he might feel his heart actually break at the sound of it.

“ _Tooru_." 

And when they rush forward to come together, with permission to crash and footings loose on the hill, the fireworks fly up again. _The grand finale_ erupts across the sky _,_ but no comets warded off.

When Oikawa falls over, it is on top of Iwaizumi, who’s still got the sense to catch him. When he lands, he finds a tiny white flower, blown down the wind’s current and landed on the nape of his best friend’s neck.

"Hajime."

Oikawa musters up all the courage he has left, even if it's the smallest amount, because he’s not sure anyone can muster up enough for the last day on earth, and thinks back to the next task on the list.

_Tell him a secret._

_Tell him about the times you dodged meeting Emiko when he was dating her, and that you still get a sour taste on your tongue from hearing the name._

_Or how you're still a little extra happy when he's the one to bring you milk bread at the end of practice. That you're perfectly fine of capable of getting it yourself, but it's nice to have his attention, and to know that he knows your favorites by heart._

_(Or how you know his, too. All of them.)_  

_Or how, in all reality, flowers have never meant that much to you. That all they were were always just last minute birthday gifts for girlfriends and fixtures in tabletop arrangements. But when he tucked one behind your ear and proclaimed it was for you, you swore, all without saying, that you might want to grow your own gardens._

_Or how, deep down, you knew you might most definitely crash the Datsun back on the road, but you wanted to try anyway, because Iwa-chan looked so happy driving it, and maybe he would've been proud of you for handling it so well, too._  

_(You didn't. You hope that he knows you tried.)_

_Tell him, maybe, that you're thankful he moved into the house next door when you were both still in the womb. That he couldn't have been a better friend the years following that, through all the fights and time outs and silent treatments._

_Tell him that you don't care about the difference between cats and dogs, and that if the world wasn't ending, their lives would always be intertwined, countryside to cityscape._

_Tell him, please tell him, that you'll still be with him to the end, anyway. And past that too, wherever that might be._

_Because you think you've wasted too much time already, and you'll need a whole afterlife and a thousand incarnations to make up for lost time. Because it’s too late now to expect the next couple of months—nonetheless years—and you’ve spent too many hours and days insisted on passing crushes, on that boy next door you swore you’d get over (oh why couldn’t you just put it into words, Tooru!) but you guess there’s nothing more you can do about it, now._

_(That’s right. Deep breath.)_

_Tell him, simply, that you’ve accepted it._

_You love him, and that’s all there is to it._

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa calls him. In distraction, made in the slowest motions, he lets his hands skirt the lapel of Iwaizumi’s jacket and pinch the flower off his neck. He gets to be the one to press it behind his ear this time, even if he’s even never thought of doing something like _that_ in a million years, and takes another deep breath. When he pounds a fist lightly against Iwaizumi’s stomach, too shaky to un-ball it, he just lets it stay there. With head too heavy to raise but lifted nonetheless, Oikawa sets his sights on him, straight in the eye.

_Tell him a secret._

“I still think about that night,” he says. “I really do, all the time,” he exasperates, choking up but refusing to cry. “I think about _you_ all the time.” 

Iwaizumi goes blank before letting Oikawa’s words sink in, deep with the inhale that swells his chest. He remains quiet, but looms in the kind that never stays too long. 

_Let him tell you a secret of his own._

“You know how you asked me why I couldn’t accept Mayumi-san’s letter?” Hajime asks instead. 

Oikawa nods.

“It’s because I do too,” he says, covering his face with a raised arm. He smiles behind it, shaking his head like he can’t believe any of this. “I still think of you, too.”

Oikawa lets the horror build up in his system, afraid he’s made up what Iwaizumi's just said. “You _what_?” he asks once more, because he can never be too sure in times like this.

“You heard me.” 

“ _Iwa-chan_!”

At the call, Iwaizumi musters up another sweeping inhale and says it for all the world to hear:

 

“I said, _I still love you too_!”

 

For the second time today, Oikawa lets himself cry in front of him once more, mouth aching from the mixed urge to both sob and laugh, because through it all his mantras had been proven true: _that if the world shall cease to exist, it will exhaust every oddity and make every phenomenon known—_ including fireflies in winter and repeating eclipses, best friends raiding convenience stores and garden shop edens, car crashes and the tiny flowers that live through them—and that most importantly, _if he had just said it earlier,_ he wouldn't he wouldn't be in this mess, bawling over Iwaizumi like the world was going to end. 

Becauseit _was_ going to end.

“Iwa-chan, what have we done?”

At once, Oikawa covers his face with his hands like before. He wonders if the world could end without him looking, just to put him out his misery.

"Oikawa."

Oikawa shakes his head to the call.

" _Oikawa._ "

"I'm not opening my eyes! Because I'm not going to watch it all _crash_ and end and—"

" _No,_ please—" Iwaizumi insists, placing shaking hands over Oikawa's, not strong enough to pry them off. "Look _,_ " he actually pleads, " _look_!"

Slowly, surely, and with one last defeat at the end of the world, Oikawa drags his hands off his face, peers up at the sky, and realizes it was never, _ever_ so.

"Iwa-chan," Oikawa mouths out. "Iwa-chan, what's happening?"

Amidst a hyperlapse of impossible color, under the sifting pastel clouds and new _aurora bourealises,_ past the stars that fall and fly back up in death-defying trajectories, Oikawa sees the comet, but not a comet at all, take its place in the upper limits. Its seafoam hues, smooth and never meant to be feared, say hello with the rings not previously seen, and Oikawa can't help but run towards it, towards the horizon. 

“Hey! Where are you going?” 

Oikawa takes Iwaizumi by the hand, keeps going and _going_ with no time to waste on words, up and down the streets of the town they had ruled all day, _their last day,_ and hears the news off rooftops.

Their mothers, playing records and dancing over kotatsu tables, say _they'll get to live for tomorrow._ A florist driving a mangled _Nissan Datsun NL320_ yells about reopening his garden shop for the occasion, and that his flowers will grow better than ever. Matsukawa and Hanamaki, still caught in their own world, watch from atop the Seijouroof and blow convenience store bubblegum in celebration. Cats return to slink on top of walls, eyes kept on phenomenal skies. In alleyways, children still mingle with their sparklers, coming up with names for new constellations and comets that were never meant to hit. Overhead, unwanted eclipses wane into a true and gentle night.

And by the end of December 2nd, 1985, Miyagi is in calamity, but the perfect kind, and Oikawa knows he must never fear crashing again--not with a new planet in orbit and Iwaizumi at his side. At this, he tells himself he must stop running, because _running away is not made for new days_. 

“Iwa-chan! Almost there!”

And when Oikawa lets himself stop, they've found themselves back on their school's athletic track anyway, all empty and theirs and back where they started. 

"We’re here again," Iwaizumi tells him with a smile while catching his breath. “When we started the list.” Hands don’t come loose this time, because they have waited much too long to stay held, while their feet come to straddle the same painted line. In constant surprises, Iwaizumi shyly digs into his pocket, produces a ripped and rolled up piece of paper, a familiar periwinkle blue, and hands it over to Oikawa. Unfurling it, he reads the last point in the letter and shakes his head in disbelief. He barely stops an incoming sigh.

 

_Number forty one: kiss Iwaizumi Hajime._

 

Oikawa turns to loom closer, beams wide even though he thinks he might die, and teases him better than anyone. 

“Not even if it were the last day on earth,” Oikawa insists, when the two of them finally close the distance, a union so right they could make planets align.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/iwakages) or [tumblr](http://companions.tumblr.com)! (also please befriend me i love meeting new friends!)   
>  Ahhh! So thank you so much for reading this fic of mine. I wrote it in part because I really wanted to explore atmosphere but somehow incorporate some sort of emotional relevancy to it so it didn't become all about aesthetic. When I thought about impending apocalypses, I started thinking about how the world (as a vastly unknown place) would react to it, and started thinking of the theme of crashing vs. aligning. I thought this would fit in perfectly with an Oikawa POV (as much as I find challenging to write) because he has this sort of frenetic energy that might work well for the end of times.
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> Also, I did a bunch of research for this fic, especially about Miyagi's Okama lake and the types of trucks that were popular in Japan in the 1980's. I wish I could've made it more about that decade, but alas, I am working now and it would've been agonizing to extend this much more than I would've ;_;
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> Anyhoo, that's all for now! Thanks for reading! (◕▿◕✿)


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